Investigation, Assassination
Pre-Assassination
It is morning! Nesh has appeared, Diomarche has disappeared. Well, that could be awkward.
We explain. No, is too much– we sum up.
Nesh is discomfited to discover that there’s another Broken miracle on us.
Breakfast is yummy, we are told. Petal is there. Volda is there. Nesh notices that the priest of Tem who’s been following us around is there, and waves. The Priest ignores him.
Church of Tam
We head first to the Church of Tam. It’s a large, cathedral-like building with a large sun symbol on the front door. It has its own grounds around it. We send Volda in to announce our presence, rather than triggering anti-Broken-miracle defenses.
A priest ushers us into a waiting area. “Tai Ko Tee [the Warmth of Summer] will see us shortly.”
“Ah, good good. You made it. Follow me, I have an area set up to look at things.”
We’re taken out of the public area and into a ritual room. Mirrors and candles and all that jazz. A big image of the sun on the floor.
We are told to get onto the Sun image so that he can see what
Purple Guy asks Tai Ko Tee if there are any churches of Balance that help people restore Balance. “All of the Balance priests are Bureaucrats. There’s not a Ministry of Balance at present. There are probably ministries you could look into for that sort of thing, though.”
Vidan, thinking about his divination attempt, thinks that there was an element of “It would be bad for me to answer that question” from Navere.
After ten minutes of miscellaneous chat, we get back onto the image of the Sun. He starts doing a ritual. Stella thinks he’s doing an interesting scaling thing. A lot of what the ritual is doing is not getting him more information, but letting him spend his DI slowly, so that it calibrates to the right level of DI spent. [Pho Sien had a similar schtick, we recall.]
The things you had on you before are:
- an unreasonably large miracle of Isolation,
- a more reasonably sized (although large) miracle from the Twins that stops time on us for a period, that is being reinforced by a similarly large Purple spell ;
- a Blue spell that I’m not sure how it scales, particularly (that’s not my area);
- an unreasonably large miracle from Navere,
- an unreasonably large miracle from Rush, which are… tied together in a way I don’t quite understand. Together the Navere + Rush miracles might be as Unreasonably large as the Isolation miracle.
Now also:
- a large (but not unreasonably so) Broken miracle which appears to be new, which is attempting to thwart the Navere miracle without actually directly interacting with it.
It appears to be strengthening a Green spell that is not on us. This one’s in the realm of a powerful priest. It is integrated into the full effect; it would be delicate to remove it without impacting anything else. (He thinks that a priestess of the Goddess might be better able to disentangle it; he would have trouble not interacting with the Twins miracle - his interaction would risk, for example, freezing more of us in time)
The Warmth of Summer thinks he could remove the miracle (tomorrow), with the caveats above.
Definitions: Powerful Priest: 20-25. Unreasonable: 50?
He scaled up to 15 DI to get the information.
He notes that he only looked at the effects on the Group; we do have other effects on us individually. Broken effects? No.
Anything the Church of Tam is up to? Nothing that particularly calls for Heroes’ interactions at present. They’re more concerned with the orc invasions.
We give him a new version of the Tarn Evidence Packet, with Secret Appendix Panda Bravo, the List of the Breaker's Plans. He agrees to look into the plot about Orange for us for a bit. It will probably just be a Tamish prophecy, rather than research into Orange. If we come back tomorrow, he might be able to give us some more information.
Ministry of Magic
(We don’t have Diomarche with us; that’s convenient. Huh.) We have an appointment, they were not expecting so many other people for the appointment, they’ll let people know we have brought friends. He writes a note and it vanishes. A few minutes later, a message appears, and we are shown into an office.
The Ministry of Magic has a Tardis effect going on– it’s bigger inside than outside. But it’s not otherwise covered in Magic the way that things in Yellow were. After a few minutes, Nesh notices we have all disappeared. A few moments later the rest of us notice Nesh has gone missing. Hmm. Nesh waits. We consider that we could probably get him here.
We get to our destination. Managaratha calls Nesh and teleports him in. Someone else teleports in. The person behind the desk waves him away, saying that was Managaratha, which is covered under section 23 subparagraph 6.
"Sub-minister Kav, in charge of monitoring Frag effects in the Empire. It’s normally expected that you check in when you arrive, but apparently you have forgotten." Managaratha says he should also check out Vidan.
“My.”
“Well, it does not seem to be leaking, so I suppose that’s a good start.”
“Leaking?!”, asks Nesh.
“Frag is the consequence in the world when you travel in time that causes two things to be true. It is often constrained to the caster, but it can have other consequences, that can spread.”
“I try to only frag myself…” – Managaratha
“You do tend to only frag yourself. But you have been sending yourself notes?”
“A version of me is sending me notes.”
“Even worse.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything going on beyond that, just remember to check in– or the rest of you can remind him to check in.”
“Your name is Kav? That will be helpful for checking in.”
“DO NOT CONTACT ME WITH A YELLOW SPELL.”
“But surely this is a safe place to cast Yellow!”
“You summoned the Subminister for the Defense Against the Yellow Arts when you tried to cast a Yellow spell.”
He freezes Vidan and asks what is up with him. We don't really know, and he is apparently unaware. We are teleported to a Lounge. (Vidan is still frozen) Except Nesh, who resists. “That is quite a bit of Resistance you have, congratulations.” In a minute, Managaratha calls Nesh, teleports Nesh to us, and the Subminister of Defense Against the Yellow Arts appears. He glares at us as we start trying to defend Managaratha’s actions. “Mages gonna Mage!” “He forgot!” “Hello, have we met?”
We wait for an hour and a half. Tea and snacks appear after a bit.
We are teleported into a larger conference room, where Subminister Kav is, along with two other people we don’t recognize. Actually, several of us recognize one of them from the Ministry of Lions who we had spoken to as part of a group from that Ministry the last time we were here.. (?)
Kav says “My investigations have been less… informative” (glaring at the guy we don’t know) “than I had hoped. However, in the case of triggering this particular event, there are protocols previously established, such that, if the Minister of Lions is unavailable to be consulted, the…. Subject [Vidan] is supposed to be sent to speak to Priest Ritasi in Rinyan, or Mother Jess in King Richard’s Lands. I anticipate that this will take place within the week, and I will have a report within the week on what actions I do or do not need to take in this matter.” He looks at the other two, who clearly have reactions to this. The tension is palpable.
“I understand there are limitations on what Vidan can do himself to get this looked into, so I trust the rest of you will deal with it and I will not have to take any steps.”
Ritasi is the head of the Cult of Al’an; Mother Jess is the highest ranking priest of Navere.
Do the others need reports? –Gale
The one we don’t recognize says no. The one we know as from Lions grimaces and says “Send a report to the Ministry of Lions, to the attention of the Minister.” Which causes the other to roll his eyes. Subministers from Lions and Redactions. They do not give names. With that, the other two teleport out, the Minister opens the door, and the Bureaucrat who showed us in is standing outside, and we follow him; Vidan is floating behind us. We are shown out. Managaratha asks Vidan about the petition to have Managaratha’s burnout removed. that he had filed yesterday. Huh. Let’s check. Vidan inquires at the front desk. Vidan looks around for the gift shop. There isn’t one. He thinks about it, and thinks the Ministry doesn’t generally sell magic, but you could requisition something specific. A scroll for a one-shot casting a spell, so that you can cast a spell without taking burnout, for instance. Managaratha gets taken into a back room. There’s a guy who looks him up and down and then casts a Purple spell that disintegrates his left hand, then casts a Red spell that regrows his left hand, and says “There you go.” And that appears to have been something Managaratha has never done before, so he gets his burnout back.
Assassination!
We think about our tactics. Nesh would prefer not to be stabbed, so maybe we use the homunculus?
How concerned should we be that the assassin will know the target is not really there, magically or divinely? Probably not terribly, since the target is a Purple Bureaucrat. A number of assassins will be able to notice if there are extra people in the room. If they have Detect Trap, we might need someone from the Church of Tem to help.
We think about
Nesh talks to Rakta, the long-suffering Priest of Tem, who can provide us with some protection from half-orc detection.
We meet the Inspector at the Inspectorate; he shows us to his home. Which appears to be an apartment, which is weird. Like a tavern, but with long-term housing? It’s a big housing block for Inspectors, which he has a space. Everything’s in good repair. Not fancy, but functional. There’s a closet someone could hide in.
Petal suggests it would be good if the Inspector weren’t present; he will stay with the Inspector elsewhere. He imagines he’ll be able to detect if an assassin shows up.
Gale gives everyone an action in the surprise round. Managaratha goes in to set up the homunculus, and then teleports out.
Scout goes in, small and stealthy, and hides in the closet, where he notes (with his excessive perception) that there is a ninja hidden in the closet with him. The ninja hasn't noticed him, though probably did notice all the previous shenanigans with the homunculus. Well, time for a surprise round, in which he shoots the ninja.
Managaratha teleports us in, and Vidan drops a teleport ward. There is no obvious ninja, nor obvious Scout. Gale sets off a lightning ball next to the farthest-away Ranger, which is Scout, and the closet explodes. Stella puts the ninja in time-out, and Scout shoots him through the eye, and he dies. Wait, were we supposed to take prisoners?
Dagger is x4, poison is pretty nasty, but isn’t reusable. He has a poison tooth. He has a necklace that when it’s taken off turns him from human-looking to half-orc looking. Vidan uses Truth to discover it’s a Temish Hide Identity amulet. Lockpicks. Scout tries to find out Where Is He From? and gets “The Emperor’s Spy Network.” That’s interesting.
Vidan does some detective work to find out what he can without disturbing the scene more. He had been in the closet for several hours, and could see that we were casting the homunculus, so he was on to us.
Vok and Petal return; Vok gets 10 more points of clues, but doesn’t say what he thinks that leads to yet. Vidan says “We overkilled our assassin and didn’t get to investigate.” Petal says “It happens.” “Definitely a member of a group, not all assassins. With a purpose, so they’re not for hire.” He sniffs at the body more. “His orders were relatively recent, within the last few days. He was not based in Zheldat himself, although he had contacts here. He got his orders somewhere else and came in. There were definitely members of the organization here that he spoke with upon arrival
“Is there anything on him that serves as his credentials?” –Vidan
“None of them are a credential, many of them will have a similar dagger/poison combo. Some of the group are not half-orcs, although there are definitely more half-orcs than not.”
“Is there any way to trace him back to his contacts?” –Scout
“I’m not good at tracing teleports, which is probably how he got into the city. I could probably identify other assassins from his group if I ran into them, although it might be trickier if he’s Hidden. If he used Truth magic to hide his identity that would be particularly difficult.”
Vok still thinks there’s still a connection with the Ministry of Pearls (Actors).
Wrapup
Vidan thinks about looking for the Bad Candidate. Who would he go to, to start pulling in threads?
The most famous of them currently is a Priest of Tam named Li Zhou. He is an archaeologist-ish, student of history, runs around finding old things. He’s the most reputable finder of old things that you can think of. He probably has no interest in being roped into a quest to find the Sword, because everyone knows it’s Lost. He’s based in a University in the city that used to be the capital of Ashkanor.
Ninjas v. Inspector Vok scoreboard:
"Ninjas" is not the name of that team. That's "Team Terrible". ("The Emperor's Spy Network" is a subteam of Team Terrible.) There is a scoreboard, but that's not their main scoreboard. It is Inspector Vok's main scoreboard. So this is more of a running tally for Vok. He is about 45 out of 100 clue points.
We go back to the temple of Tam. Prophecy things he saw having to do with the corruption of Orange (there is bleedthrough from things like the slith invasion also). There was also a lot of interference.
- A map with an X
- A single orange mage trying to push Orange to do more than it can/should
- An orc Rainbow mage who uses the Broken colors and hopes that Orange will expand to include Broken Orange
Vidan goes to the Ministry of Naval Trade - he has been tasked to investigate piracy. Are there reports? ("Who is in charge" since the Minister is in Middlesea is complicated and maybe it is being taken over.)
Since Middlesea sealed, it is significantly trickier to negotiate by paying tribute to the Pirate Queen. There was about a month where people were playing by those rules, but now everyone is an individual pirate. It's much more random - it used to be coordinated if you didn't pay tribute, they'd hit you with a lot of ships or hit your lootiest ships, and now it's random and unplannable, which they hate.
For Soon:
Ministry of Lions: put us in, coach!
Loot
- +9 EPs
- +9 SPs
- necklace of Temish “Hide Me” schtick